First it was shortening the time it takes data to get between New York and Chicago, now its New York and London. The big difference here is that the NY to London route is 3 times longer and has an ocean in the middle – no small feet of engineering and no small price tag.

Such links help inform trading programs that need to consider market data coming out of two separate locations, according to Kevin McPartland, senior analyst with market research firm Tabb Group.

“Say there’s a tick up in the price of a future, and all the stocks in a certain basket will tick up a fraction of a second later,” McPartland said. “If you can see two milliseconds faster where the futures moved in Chicago and subsequently make the stock trade in New York, you can more quickly capture the spread.”